THE RALSTON FURNACES: IRON MINING AND MANUFACTURING IN THE WILDS OF THE LYCOMING CREEK VALLEY, PENNSYLVANIA

Lycoming Creek rises on the Allegheny Plateau in north central PA and flows S 35 mi across Lycoming County into the West Branch Susquehanna River at Williamsport. Ten miles down the valley at Ralston is an important 19^th-century iron-and-coal-mining district. Furnaces at Astonville and Carterville utilized local charcoal, semi-bituminous coal and iron ore, as well as RR-transported anthracite and ore to produce cast iron intermittently over several decades in mid-century.

Two significant iron-ore zones crop out in the valley. The older, correlative with the “Mansfield ore” of Tioga and Bradford Counties, is a red, calcareous, hematitic “fossil ore” that occurs in the upper part of the Upper Devonian Lock Haven Fm. and was mined in the southern part of the valley. The main ore smelted at Astonville and Carterville came from the Mississippian Mauch Chunk Fm., mined on Pickenville and Red Run Mtns. This ore is primarily siderite occurring as several bands in green shales at the top of the formation. The uppermost and most important of these bands, the “white ore,” is 30-40% metallic iron. At Astonville it was concentrated by weathering it over the winter so that freeze-thaw action could break the sideritic nodules away from the clayey and siliceous “gangue” (hence the name of the nearby stream, Frozen Run). “Mansfield ore” from the Mansfield-Austinville area to the N was mixed with the “white ore” at both furnaces, as was Lower Silurian Clinton “fossil ore” from New York State at Carterville.

Astonville furnace is located on the W side of the valley 1.4 mi SW of Ralston. A charcoal furnace was erected there in 1831. Operated until 1847, this furnace was replaced by an anthracite furnace in 1853, which blew in, then shortly after chilled. Operations commenced again in 1864, but a flood in the spring of 1865 rendered it inoperable. It was never relit. Carterville Furnace is situated just W of the creek 1.4 mi N of Ralston. It was originally completed in 1854, but remained unused for two decades. In 1874 it was restored and blown in for a campaign that lasted two months. It was then blown out and never used again.

The remains of both furnaces are accessible today. Astonville is in fair condition. The work arch is collapsed, but the rest of the furnace is intact. Carterville is better preserved, the stonework of this furnace being superior to that of the former.